


Masked Men

by storiesfortravellers



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Angst, Diggle Wearing the Hood, Gen, M/M, Silence, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-27
Updated: 2013-09-27
Packaged: 2017-12-27 18:43:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/982301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesfortravellers/pseuds/storiesfortravellers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Ash, for the prompt, "what Diggle feels when he puts on the hood."  Mentions of Diggle's thoughts on killing, his past, and his relationship with Oliver.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Masked Men

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Люди в масках](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1361371) by [leoriel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leoriel/pseuds/leoriel)



An arrow through the heart does the same work a bullet does, but for some reason, to Diggle it feels cleaner.

It’s not. It’s still metal slashing through flesh. It’s still blood and puss filling the wound, drowning the tissue until the body fails. 

Diggle knows this. But when Oliver shoots a man, it doesn’t feel like watching someone take a bullet. Maybe it’s the sound, the soft elastic thud of the bow’s release, that makes it seem, somehow, softer than a gun. Maybe it’s the clarity of it all; unlike when John was shooting people, with Oliver, they always know, without a doubt, that the man deserves it.

Probably, though, it’s because John’s just watching. It’s easy to feel like an arrow is just a nice smooth exit from this earth for its recipient when John knows it’s not his kill, when he knows he can take out the bad guys without doing any of the killing himself. 

John learned in the army that you can’t take on guilt from other soldier’s kills. You have enough of your own corpses on your conscience, and you don’t need to pile on more. But when John was done with the war, he joined Oliver’s war. It was smaller, more personal. Just as muddy, but muddy in a different way. And despite Oliver’s stubbornness, John rarely actually felt like he had no say about who and what they battled and how. 

Oliver’s talents were a gift, and Oliver was willing to share that gift, to work with John to clean up this city. It had been a long time since Diggle had felt a sense a purpose like this, since he had felt like he was doing something that really needed to be done. And he wasn’t sure he was 100% on board with the number of bodies Oliver left behind, but as long as it wasn’t anyone innocent, John could live with it. It’s not like Oliver was asking John to make the kills. And John didn’t feel guilty for lives taken out by the soldier next to him. There wasn’t any point.

\--

Diggle isn’t great with a bow. But Oliver gives him a few tips, and he’s good enough to pose as the Hood for a night, just enough to convince the police that Oliver couldn’t possibly be the vigilante they’re all looking for. 

Oliver is surprisingly considerate when teaching him. It’s not like sparring, where it’s always a contest. Instead, Oliver gently corrects his stance, his arm position, softly tells him what to concentrate on, how to visualize the release. Diggle is tempted to ask him who Oliver learned from, but he knows that question isn’t going to take Oliver any place good.

When it comes time, Diggle puts the Hood’s clothes on. Oliver has plenty of bulk, but Diggle’s stockier, and so it’s a little tight in the chest and the legs. He can’t be as flexible as Oliver would be. 

He looks in the mirror, the Hood’s clothing with his face, and it seems mismatched, like an illusion.

He turns around and Oliver looks him over, up and down. He nods and smiles, just a little, and as usual, John has no idea what the hell is going through his head.

They leave then to head for their target locations: Oliver to his party full of witnesses, and Diggle to his equally public appearance.

The plan goes off without a hitch.

For a moment, after the work is done, Diggle looks around. From where he’s perched, he can see for blocks: he can see a drug dealer who’s well known for getting this territory by killing his rivals, a pimp who specializes in underage girls, a couple of thugs almost certainly in the neighborhood to beat people who didn’t pay their gambling debts. For a second – just a second – Diggle wonders what it would feel like to take them out. To shoot them and disappear and never be found out. 

Diggle, in that brief second, as he stood there with his face enveloped by the hood, feels like it would be just like watching Oliver shoot someone. Like it wasn’t Diggle doing it at all. 

He shakes off the thought, the desire he has no right to feel, and leaves before anyone can follow his tracks.

\--

They thought John was going to re-enlist. He had the option of leaving, had certainly done more than his fair share, but he was too good at what he did to want to leave (they thought).

But one of the reasons Diggle was so good in the field is that he knew when to cut his losses, and when he didn’t have the resources to finish the job. He made the smart calls.

When Diggle started, every man he killed haunted him. Gave him nightmares. Made him wonder in his downtime what kind of men they were, what drove them to fight. If they believed in their cause or was forced into it. He wondered about the people they left behind, who would miss them, who would imagine Diggle’s name and face just so they would have someone to hate.

Over time, that faded. He started to think about them less and less. He thought this was a good sign, that it meant that his mental health was better off.

Eventually, it got to the point where Diggle didn’t feel a thing. 

That was when he knew he had to quit. Next chance he got. 

He didn’t have the resources to keep doing this. Not if he wanted to stay the same man. So he left before he lost everything.

He didn’t give an official reason; he waited until his years were up and it was his choice to stay or go. 

He told himself that he was going to get a nice cushy security job and then never look back at his years of blood and bullets, at the slow fade from a compassionate man to something else.

It didn’t quite work out that way. 

\--

The night Diggle pretended to be the Hood, they celebrated their success at the hideout. Oliver brought down some champagne and thanked him for what he had done, for all that Diggle had done for the mission.

They drank the champagne. It was good, but Diggle didn’t ask how much the bottle cost. Oliver probably didn’t even know.

Diggle told him then, about why he had left the army. He told Oliver what he had realized about himself, and what he feared. While he was telling it, he tried to read Oliver’s response, tried to make sure that Oliver wasn’t imagining this was some reproach or life lesson. John just wanted to tell him something, wanted Oliver to know how he got here. 

He was telling Oliver how he became this desperate man, this man who would do anything to fight the evil around him and didn’t have any other tools but sharpness and terror, this man who wanted to wield the violence inside of him without falling utterly into it. This man who was willing to throw himself into a mission that was almost certainly going to end up with both of them dead. 

He wanted to tell Oliver, so that Oliver would tell him. He wanted, painfully, to know how Oliver had gotten here.

But Oliver just listened to Diggle’s story. Listened with sympathy, respect, without judgment. But when Diggle was done, he just nodded and filled Diggle’s glass. 

Diggle sighed and looked down at the champagne, at the bubbles going flat. He had felt, for a moment, like he was the Hood, like he knew the Hood’s mind, like he could see with his eyes. But there was nothing he could do that would let him in Oliver’s head.

He drank the whole glass, and put it down, and gestured for Oliver to fill it again.


End file.
